The ASUS EAX1300PRO

The ASUS EAX1300PRO

Compared to the reference design, the ASUS EAX1300PRO makes use of its own proprietary design. This meant a reordering of the components and layout on the PCB. However, the more significant difference that end-users should care about is the cooler. The original default cooler and its noisy performance is one of the weaknesses of the Radeon X1000 series. ASUS has rectified this with its own cooler that not only cools the GPU like the default one, but also helps to cool some of the memory chips. We should know shortly in our temperature tests whether that is of any real usefulness but so far we can definitely tell that the noise level is perceptibly lower from the ASUS cooler.

The card and its clock speeds are fairly typical, with ASUS following the standard specifications from ATI for both core and memory clock speeds. Core frequency is 600MHz while the DDR2 chips are clocked at 800MHz DDR. As the ASUS EAX1300PRO uses Infineon 2.5ns rated memory, don't expect blazing fast speeds for them. Like all low-end cards, the power requirements of the ASUS EAX1300PRO are modest and hence there is no need for a power connector. The other outputs found on the card include a standard set of DVI-I connector, the old and trusty VGA output and the versatile mini-DIN output. In short, these are the connectors that everyone should be familiar with.

Like most low-end and budget graphics cards, the bundled accessories and software included are limited to the basic items. These consist of the DVI-to-VGA adaptor and the Composite cable. There are also no applications included on the CD, only the graphics drivers and ASUS' own utilities, like its GameLiveShow, which allows users to broadcast their gaming experience over the net. You can refer to ASUS' website for the full details of these utilities though for most users, they would surely prefer a DVD playback program instead.